THE DO'S AND DON'TS OF REMOVING EARWAX SAFELY

Sticking a cotton swab in your ear on the regular may offer what feels like sweet relief from seemingly impacted wax, but experts say the practice isnt only unnecessary its also risky.

Patients often think that they are preventing earwax from building up by cleaning out their ears with cotton swabs, paper clips, ear candles, or any number of unimaginable things that people put in their ears. The problem is that this effort to eliminate earwax is only creating further issues because the earwax is just getting pushed down and impacted further into the ear canal, Dr. Seth R. Schwartz, of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation, which released new guidelines Tuesday, said in a news release. Anything that fits in the ear could cause serious harm to the ear drum and canal with the potential for temporary or even permanent damage.

In the updated guidelines, Schwartz and his colleagues write what the organization and other experts have long said: that earwax helps clean, protect and oil ears. During the ears natural cleaning process, jaw motion and growing skin in the ear canal helps push earwax from inside the ears toward the ear opening, where bathing or ...